


I Voted Today

by vienna_waits



Category: due South
Genre: Comedy, Community: ds_flashfiction, Gen, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-17
Updated: 2010-08-17
Packaged: 2017-10-11 03:35:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/107893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vienna_waits/pseuds/vienna_waits
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"We'd better hurry, Ray. The polls are about to close."</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Voted Today

**Author's Note:**

> Written in March 2008 for the ds_flashfiction Self-Insertion Challenge. Thanks to spuffyduds for beta!

"Election workers are the front lines of democracy!" they told me. Well, if that's true, then apathy has won the freakin' war. I've been sitting at this table since six this morning, and our precinct, which has over 700 registered voters, has seen a whopping 47 people actually come in and vote today. It's been snowing to beat the band all afternoon, and after we close up, clean up, and finish off our paperwork, I have to drive the ballot box and all the supplies back over to the Board of Elections. It'll take me ten minutes just to dig my car out. I'll be lucky if I make it home by nine.

My eyes flick to the wall clock yet again. Two more minutes. Just two more measly minutes, and then we can lock the doors and start packing up.

Delia, the worker next to me at the table, lets out a weighty sigh and puts down the battered romance she's been halfheartedly reading. "Close enough," she says, waving her hand dismissively at the clock. She extricates her considerable heft from the chair with a grunt. "You know there's no one else coming in, not in this weather." She ambles toward the door to our polling location, a recreation room on the ground floor of a seniors' apartment tower. Just as she reaches the rec room door, we hear footsteps coming in the front door and stomping off snow on the mat, and two voices carry clearly down the hall.

"We'd better hurry, Ray. The polls are about to close."

"Benny, we wouldn't have to hurry if you hadn't insisted on playing triple A the whole way over here! 'I'll have you out of that culvert in a jiffy, sir.' 'Why certainly, ma'am, my partner and I would be honored to push your car up the driveway.' Thanks to you, I've got Chicago slush all over my good coat." An agitated whisking sound, a sigh. "This stuff is like toxic waste."

"I'm sorry, but--"

"Yeah, yeah, your Canadian genes make it impossible for you to say no. And apparently they're contagious. Why am I here again?"

The footsteps begin to move down the hall toward us, and Benny, apparently a very literal man, says calmly, "Well, Ray, you are here to exercise your civic duty, of course. Voting is the cornerstone of a democratic society."

"The cornerstone of a democratic society," Ray says, so exasperated I can hear the eye roll in his voice, "how can you even say that with a straight face? This democratic society's gotten along perfectly well without me, and I fail to see how some off-year election is going to change the world. And what about those freaks in your building? Do you think any of them vote? Would one single thing change for them if they did?"

The footsteps slow a bit. "Plato said, 'Democracy passes into despotism.' And this is precisely how it happens, Ray--when the people no longer bother to make their voices heard. Perhaps nothing would change if everyone in my building voted, but there's really only one way to find out for sure, wouldn't you say?"

"Voting still doesn't do much if all the choices are lousy. For Alderman, I can either pick the guy with three DUIs on his record, or I can pick the guy that has active ties to the Corelli family. What kind of a choice is that?"

The two of them enter the room, and I'm not sure what I was expecting to see, but it certainly wasn't this. The earnest one, Benny, is dressed in screaming bandleader red, with brown leather boots laced almost up to the knee and a hat atop his head. It's clearly a uniform of some kind, but I can't seem to place it. He is quite possibly the most perfectly proportioned human being I have ever seen, and drop-dead gorgeous to boot. The cynical one, Ray, is wearing a long expensive-looking coat, leather gloves and a lined leather skullcap, and although he's not the classical beauty that Benny is, he has an open, charming face with eyes that look like they could wink at you any second, and despite the bluster, he has a "thoroughly decent guy" vibe about him.

"Good evening," I greet them, "you just made it." I look to Benny, and it's like my eyes just won a five-second trip to Hawaii. "Your name, please?"

He quickly extends his hand, thinking I'm being sociable, and not knowing what else to do, I shake it. "I'm Constable Benton Fraser, RCMP, but I'm afraid I can't--I'm not permitted to--"

"He's Canadian," Ray says, like he rattles it off a hundred times a day, "but he wants to vote so bad it's killin' him." Now Ray's smiling, a really beautiful thousand-watt smile, and Benny--or Constable Fraser, the Canadian cop, I guess I should say--is looking away and trying not to smirk. "Raymond Vecchio," he says to me, and I find his name in the signature book.

"Are you still on Octavia, Mr. Vecchio?"

Ray nods, and I swing the book around for him. "If you could just sign in the box next to your name, please, Delia can--" I glance at the door, and Delia looks like she's been turned to stone, staring transfixed at the two men cruising in right on the buzzer--"DELIA," I say a little louder, and she starts visibly before setting herself into motion, "can get you in the clerk's book, and we can get your ballot for you."

The other workers at the table come to life, and soon Ray is ensconced at a booth with his punch card. He fiddles with the punching tool as he reads the instructions on the front cover of the voting booklet, then settles into a rhythm of punching holes and turning pages. Constable Fraser paces back and forth, clearly itching to advise Ray on his electoral choices, clasping his hands tightly behind his back.

Ray is on the last page when a shrill ring from his coat pocket pierces the silence. "Yeah," Ray answers. He listens for a long moment, then stiffens. Constable Fraser looks on curiously. "What? How? Where is he now? ...Okay, we're on it." He hangs up and turns away from the booth, and I can hear sirens coming closer. "We gotta go, Benny. Now."

But Constable Fraser blocks his path with crossed arms. "Finish voting first. You're almost done."

Ray stares incredulously at him for a long moment, even tries to sidestep around him, but the Constable neatly hops back and forth to remain in front of him. "What? Are you cr--yes, why am I even asking, of course you're crazy. We got hoodlums escaping custody and racing through the neighborhood, and you're telling me to eat my vegetables." With a long-suffering sigh that sounds well practiced, Ray turns back to the booth, scans the last race, and theatrically plunges his punch from well above the card before sliding it out, slipping it into its little gray pocket, and dropping the whole package into the waiting ballot box. "There. Can we go now, or are you going to make me watch a couple hours of C-SPAN first?"

I hold up a hand. "Uh, one more thing, Mr. Vecchio..."

"What?!" A flash of anger--I bet he has quite a temper when provoked.

I smile my most charming smile and hold up a small white object. "Don't forget this--you worked hard for it."

Ray comes over and plucks it from my hand, then breaks out into another grin. "Thanks," he says, peeling off the sticker and slapping it over his heart.

I VOTED TODAY, the sticker says.

"Thank you kindly," Constable Fraser says, tipping his hat to all of us. "I'd love to stay and discuss your electoral system in more detail, but duty calls, I'm afraid."

He and Vecchio charge back down the hall and out the front door.

"Weirdest voters we had all day," Delia says, and the whole table busts out laughing. She hurries to the door and locks it.


End file.
